


Baby Mine

by suzannahbee123



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Character Death, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, dad!bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 11:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19106101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzannahbee123/pseuds/suzannahbee123
Summary: Once dance at a wedding was all it took for Bucky to fall in love with you, and life will only get better with you by his side. You made his life perfect.





	Baby Mine

**Author's Note:**

> The song lyrics in italics at the end ae from Baby Mine on the original Dumbo soundtrack.

Bucky saw you first when you were dancing at Steve’s wedding to Tony. The wedding had been a long time coming, and tears had been shed at how wonderfully happy the pair of them looked. _Bucky_ was beyond happy for his best friend and the man who had given him shelter back in the United States, even after everything. Bucky had thought this heart would burst for the love and joy he felt for the two of them.

At least, that was, until he saw you, dancing awkwardly with Jane Foster. There was grace in the jerky movements, joy in the way that you were making Jane and Thor laugh. You looked sublimely happy and that joy spread right through Bucky, even from all the way across the large and tastefully decorated room.

Your eyes, bright and sparkling with hidden mischief and a small amount of alcohol, turned and met Bucky’s, causing his heart to leap, butterflies to erupt in his stomach, and lightning to sizzle over his skin. His eyes locked with yours and, when you beckoned him over, a daring half smile tilting what looked like absolutely _perfect_ lips, Bucky didn’t hesitate to get up and come over to you, taking the hand that was offered and starting to awkwardly sway with you in his arms.

“Hey, I’m Y/N. So, what’s a wedding like you, doing in a man like this?”

The giggle at your own dubious humour that erupted from you, that caused your nose to scrunch adorably and etch crinkles around your pretty coloured eyes, crinkles that showed a life filled with laughter and joy, made a returning helpless laugh come from deep in Bucky’s gut, “I was best man. That’s my best friend being all sappy up there with his husband, doll,”

“Okay, come now, you just met me, no need to pet name me already!”

You looked so pretty, just like a doll from back in his time, but Bucky nodded his head deferentially, and shrugged, “Okay, I get it. But, if it makes you feel better, Y/N, you can give me a pet name?”

“Well, seeing as I’m not quite sure what your actual name is, seeing as you haven’t bothered to introduce yourself, I guess I’ll have to, won’t I?” You sniff, disapprovingly at him, and Bucky cringes at his poor etiquette. He couldn’t help it that you had befuddled him, though.

“Hey, can I have this dance?”

Bucky’s head snapped to his left where a beautifully dressed socialite of some kind stood, smiling sultrily at him with her palm outstretched. Instinctively, Bucky pulled you closer to him, his pull to you turning every other woman into smoke as far as he was concerned, but you spoke up before he could,

“Beat it, lady! This baby is _mine!”_

“Damn, doll,” Bucky laughed nervously as the stranger flounced off, pouting, “possessive much?”

“What? You wanted a nickname, you got one!” Your smile lights up the room, and you move just a little closer, “Listen, baby mine… obviously I don’t agree with possessive statements like that, I am a independent lady and all that, but, and this could be the champagne talking, I got a feelin’ that you’n me will be getting into all sorts of possessiveness in the future. I know these things.”

“Is that so, doll? One bad dance and that’s it?”

“Pfffft,” your head was thrown back on your shoulders dramatically, giving Bucky a wonderful view of the arch of your throat, his lips tingling with the sudden need to see if your skin would _feel_ as satin-y as it _looked_ , “some things you just know, baby mine. Anyway… what _is_ your name?”

“Bucky… Bucky Barnes, doll,”

There was a moment, a brief pause, that felt as long as a lifetime, where he waited for the inevitable. The moment where your head would snap back up, your eyes would go from beguiling to petrified, and you would run away from him.

That didn’t happen though.

“Okay, Mr Winter Soldier with the fun name, here is my number, give me a call or a text or whatever works for you in the morning. Carrier pigeon, maybe?” Bucky chuckles at the inebriated confusion that ripples across your features, “I don’t know if there’s still telegrams in this century, but we could visit a museum… anyway. Call me, baby mine. I’m too drunk on free booze to agree to anything your pretty face asks right now,”

The warmth of your palm against his cheek lingered, long after you stumbled off in search of Jane, the person who you worked with and who got you into the party.

Your phone number was written on a napkin, but the digits were already memorised. There was nothing about you that Bucky could forget.

***

A year later, and this time the dance Bucky shared with you was much less awkward, far more poised, and filled with far more tension of a sexual nature. You hadn’t had a single drink and Bucky, of course, couldn’t get drunk anyway.

Plus, it was your wedding day, and who wanted to spoil their wedding night with alcohol? Not Bucky, that was for damn sure.

“Baby mine… what’s happening in that beautiful head of yours, hmmm?”

The playful nicknames Bucky would give you changed almost daily depending on his mood or what you were doing. Anything from the original “doll”, to “love” to “sweetheart”, would pass his lips at any point on any day. You, however, had stuck with Baby Mine, and that most possessive of statements had become Bucky’s whole world. They were his anchor. You would giggle it, yell it in frustration or sometimes anger, and you would breathe it, _moan_ it in his ear during your lovemaking.

Those two words held your entire spectrum of emotions for him, and Bucky felt them in his heart, giving his blood warmth and life in ways that his actual heart could never do. You were the port in a storm that Bucky hadn’t known he had needed or was even looking for. The lighthouse in the dark that prevented him from crashing into the rocks he hadn’t even realised were there.

And now, it was _your_ wedding day. Steve was _his_ best man, and Bucky was holding you in his arms as you swayed to the music that you both had picked out.

“Just thinking about how much I love ya, Mrs Barnes,” Bucky whispered, almost afraid to say it out loud too loudly, like the spell would be broken. Your eyes, those beautiful orbs that sparkled whenever you looked at him, glittered mischievously at him, reflecting the pretty fairy lights that lit up the hall, and your _smile…_ well, suddenly Bucky didn’t feel anywhere close to crashing. He just felt _you_.

“Come on then, Baby Mine… one more dance and let’s blow this popsicle stand, huh?!”

Bucky couldn’t agree more, and literally carried you out not long after. You guys were married now, and Bucky couldn’t wait to begin married life with you.

***

“Soooo…”

Bucky looked up from the book he was reading to look at you as you nervously paced in your living room. Apparently, even though you had opened up the conversation, you didn’t seem inclined to continue it.

“So? Doll? Are you okay?”

“Me? What?! Ha! I’m fine, Bucky!”

Frowning, Bucky looked down at your hands which were rubbing over your lower stomach, “Are you in pain? Is it that time of the month again?” Standing, he made to go to the kitchen to get some tylenol and a heating pad, “It seems forever since your last one!”

Your small cough halted Bucky’s steps and he slowly turned around to face you, looking again at your hands covering your stomach. He raised his eyes to meet yours and you raised a careful eyebrow at him, your lips twisted into something that Bucky had termed a “smirkfrown”. You only wore it when he said or did something that you found frustrating, but felt mean about calling him out on.

“Bucky… when _was_ the last time I had a “time of the month”, hmmm?”

Bucky’s brain quickly ran through weeks and months and, on a shaky breath, he answered, “About four months ago? But-!”

“Yep. That’s right. So, Baby Mine… we’re pregnant with an actual baby! A Baby _Ours!_ I’m pregnant, Bucky!”

“ _WHAT?!”_

The distance between him and you was closed immediately, Bucky couldn’t remember his legs carrying him to you, all he could remember was kissing you soundly on the mouth, holding you as close as possible and, as soon as he had kissed his love and thanks and gratitude onto your lips, he had dropped to his knees in front of you, gently lifting your shirt so he could gawk at your stomach… where your baby was currently growing.

“Baby Ours… we love you already. I can’t wait to meet you.”

Bucky had been married to you for six months. Life was perfect and could only get better.

***

“Come on, Ava! Come to daddy!” Bucky beckoned his daughter to him, grinning as widely as she did when she toddled her way to him on her chubby little legs, arms outstretched for him, “Yeah, Baby Ours! You did it, you angel!”

Bucky peppered his baby’s face with kisses, making her giggle impossibly sweeter than you, his wife of nearly three years, and felt so happy and complete in this moment that he could forget that he had woken from a terror filled nightmare just this morning. The nightmare he could barely remember, and it didn’t matter really. _You_ were there when he woke up, holding him and soothing him back to sleep. Ava was there at first light, crying for attention and snuggling for cuddles when she did get it.

Nightmares didn’t hold much sway over Bucky now, not when his life was so perfect. Not when he had you and Ava.

“I have to go out for a few hours with Jane for work, something “extraordinary” came up and she needs me to help get some initial readings, is that okay?”

Bucky was lifting Ava over his head, up and down, completely enamoured with the way she would squeal in delight at the movements, “Huh, doll? Uh, yeah! Of course! I think I got the little one handled for a few hours, whaddya say, Ava? Me n’you? Daddy daughter time?”

“Yeyeyeyeye!!” Ava chanted in happy agreement to his suggestion.

“See, Y/N? We’re all good by ourselves!” Bucky winked and stood, taking a moment just to kiss and hold you, alongside your baby, in his arms, revelling in it, even. “I love you, doll, come back soon, okay?”

“Will do, baby mine! I’m already salivating at the idea of what you’ll cook for me!”

“Yeah, yeah, get gone!” Bucky shooed you out the door after you had kissed the top of Ava’s head, “See you in a few hours, beautiful!”

Bucky turned back into the house, pulling faces at Ava and planning on which park to take her to for a while. He didn’t watch you drive away.

***

_“Doll?”_

_“Hey, baby mine!”_

_“Y/N!” Bucky rushed forward, but stopped when he was met with what felt like an invisible barrier between you, “Sweetheart… why can’t I touch you?! Why can’t I hold you?!”_

_“You know why, Bucky… I’m not there anymore… I’m gone,”_

_“No!”_

_“Listen…” your eyes, always sparkling, always glittering, always filled with_ life, _were dulled in this grey atmosphere, and distorted by the wall between you, “I’m gone… but I am always there. You can never get rid of me so easily, Baby Mine.”_

_“I- I miss you, Y/N… I can’t do this without you.”_

_“Yes. You can. For our daughter you must.”_

_Bucky’s heart, in this moment and at those words… they both broke_ and _healed his battered heart._

_Ava…_

_“I wish… I just want one more dance with you, darlin’, one more time to hold you in my arms…”_

_Tears, real and true, shone at Bucky and he hated himself a little for making you cry like this, but your smile, that seductive and devious one, stretched across your face regardless, and your arms reached out through two holes in the wall that separated you from him,_

_“Old times sake?”_

_“I’m never going to stop loving you, Y/N,” Bucky whispered, his voice cracking as his arms pushed through and he felt the warmth of your skin against his fingertips._

_“I should hope so. I’m so loveable!”_

_Bucky choked out a laugh, and tried to hold onto this moment, where he held you even through the gap that separated you. Where he could still dance with you to soft music, even though the wall between life and death was never going to come down for you._

“ _I love you for forever, Baby Mine,”_

Your voice rang in Bucky’s ears as he woke up from his dream of you. Looking over at the empty side of the bed, Bucky allowed the tears to fall, allowed his grief to take over for just a minute.

You had been dead for a year. A drunk driver had ran a red light and taken out your car when you had left to see Jane. The fact that the coroner had said it was instantaneous didn’t help. The fact that the driver had been put in jail for vehicular manslaughter hadn’t eased his pain.

You were gone. Bucky was alone again.

Ava’s cries cut through his grief, halting the tears instantly. Bucky looked out the window, seeing the sun just rising over the trees…

“ _I can’t do this without you.”_

_“Yes. You can. For our daughter you must.”_

Your words, whether it really _had_ been you, or just his subconscious finally kicking him into gear, was irrelevant, really. His baby girl needed him. Ava might have lost her mother due to an avoidable tragedy, but Bucky was _done_ having her lose him too. He was done being selfish in his grief.

“Hey, Baby Ours… daddy is here…”

Ava was stood up in her cot, Bucky just now noticing that it was definitely starting to get too small for her, and he picked her up, drying the tears on her face and holding her to him, “I’m so sorry, baby… I’m so sorry…”

“Love you, daddy…”

“I love you too, Baby Ours… so does Mommy… always.”

Ava didn’t say anything else, it looked like she was already falling back to sleep in his arms. Bucky surreptitiously wiped his eyes again and turned on some soft music, some Disney soundtrack songs that her godfathers, Steve and Tony, and set up for her. Holding his baby in his arms, Bucky swayed gently.

Bucky would miss you and, always, he would love you, but he wasn’t alone and never would be without a part of you. Thanks to you, he had Ava. Your baby.

_Baby mine, don’t you cry._

_Baby mine, dry your eyes._

_Rest your head close to my heart,_

_Never to part, baby of mine._

_Little one, when you play,_

_Pay no heed what they say._

_Let your eyes sparkle and shine,_

_Never a tear, baby of mine._

_If they knew all about you,_

_They’d end up loving you, too._

_All those same people who scold you,_

_What they’d give just for the right to hold you._

_From your hair down to your toes,_

_You’re not much, goodness knows._

_But, you’re so precious to me,_

_Sweet as can be, baby of mine._


End file.
